Mastery of the Unavoidable
by Sethos
Summary: This was written way back, after I'd found the first KirkSpock slash on the emerging Internet. Set between the first and second movie; works on the premise of an "established relationship".


**MASTERY OF THE UNAVOIDABLE**  
  
_Saturday_  
  
Really important people apparently cannot afford to take the whole weekend off, Spock mused. Jim Kirk seemed to consider himself really important and thus had gone off to Starfleet HQ to attend some meeting concerning the diplomatic ramifications about the Federation aid in battling the Algolian Marsh Fiend Plague. Spock didn't think himself really important, and found the present meteorological conditions less than accommodating to his Vulcan physique, so he'd stayed in bed. Of course he wasn't just lazing about. He had pulled over his reading screen and was refreshing his knowledge about socially stigmatising diseases. Accessing material from the databases at Starfleet Academy and the San Francisco Public Databases, he had so far covered the social histories of the Vulcan Bendii's Disease, plak ran, and the Human disease known as leprosy, and found himself presently engrossed in the truly deplorable history of the late 20th/early 21st century Earth epidemic named AIDS.  
  
Of course he would not have had to stay in bed to do so; there was an ample amount of viewscreens all over the apartment, but the bed was special. At first Spock had been more than sceptical when Jim Kirk replaced their comfortable contemporary bed with a genuine rococo antique. Illogical to use something old, delicate and probably uncomfortable for the purpose of resting and lovemaking. Their first night in it had convinced him, though. The gently curving head and foot of the bed, upholstered in pale yellow satin, conveyed an impression of enveloping, nest-like snugness; and the old mattress, although in no way sagging or worn, gathered them up in comfortable relaxation, enhancing their closeness in repose. And although the rococo bed did cause a faint creaking noise when they made love, and although the stuffing of the yellow upholstery had a decidedly dry and lumpy texture (Jim said it felt like "cabbage leaves and cutlery", obviously some quote, although Spock couldn't place the reference), this only served to make the bed more unique, more theirs.  
  
Sitting crossleggedly on the bed, back against the headrest, Spock was experiencing more and more uncomfortable sensations inside, due to the subject matter he was reading about. This wasn't just information. First-hand sources and added documentary footage clearly conveyed the passionate anger and grief people in this very city had felt and vented about two hundred and fifty years ago. People like himself and Jim Kirk; there was no denying the possibility for identification.  
  
The comm-link went. From the tone of the chime Spock could clearly discern that it was his own. He put the call on hold and went over into the living room to his personal comm station to get it. Jim's comm had chimed three times already during the morning, but of course Spock hadn't answered the calls. The vast majority of their colleagues and associates did not know and did not need to know that Jim and he were living together. For the same reason Spock took his calls only at his own console which provided a neutral background for visual transmissions.  
  
The caller was Jim. "I'm finished here and on my way home. What's wrong?"  
  
"Nothing. What gave you that impression".  
  
"I just wanted to know how you were doing and opened our link a little, and felt - anguish, sadness. What happened?"  
  
"Again, nothing. I am merely absorbing socio-historical information of a nature which exposes the weaknesses in my Mastery of the Unavoidable".  
  
"Meaning, you're reading about all those dreadful illnesses and feeling pity".  
  
"Correct".  
  
"Which one is it".  
  
"The immune deficiency in humans that was, at the time, known under the acronym of AIDS".  
  
"It would be. I'm coming home anyway; go back to bed, we can talk about it".  
  
"I do indeed mean to provide you with an abstract of the information digested today; however..."  
  
"Spock, cut it out. I'm your bondmate, and sharing such experiences is exactly what the bond is for and about. And your perfectly natural compassion for our ancestors in spirit gives us an angle into a conversation I've been thinking for some weeks we should have. Meanwhile, I'm coming home, and I..."  
  
Through the bond, Spock felt a split second before what was coming, and put a stop to it. "Very well, Admiral; I'm expecting you".  
  
"Don't you 'Admiral' me! I know you're paranoid what with your separate comm link and that console I'm not allowed to touch and so forth, but do you really think anybody at the HQ would listen in on our private conversation?"  
  
"Even an accidental interception could prove disastrous".  
  
"This paranoia is also part of what I want to talk to you about. Well, do we still need anything we don't have at home or the food synthesiser can't provide?"  
  
"If you'd do me the favour of purchasing three middle sized fresh plomeeks at the Vulcan import shop on..."  
  
"I know where it is, Spock. I've been there often enough. Plomeek soup? It's that bad?"  
  
Spock didn't answer to the tenderness in Jim's voice radiating over the comm-link. "Very well; would you like me to prepare something for your refreshment?"  
  
"If you'd just get the coffee-maker going that would be great. I'll be with you soon". The comm-link faded out.  
  
Spock went into the kitchen and switched on the electronic coffee maker, turning it off again at once, before water or ground coffee started to be piped into their respective places, when a thought struck him. Instead, he programmed the servo chef to simply boil water, and got out the old-fashioned coffee maker Jim sometimes used, into which coffee and water had to be filled manually to seep for awhile, then be separated by means of a depressable, purely mechanical sieve. Spock knew his bondmate preferred this kind of coffee, but was mostly in too much of a hurry to prepare it that way. He went about this task with meditative calm, secretly dreading the conversation Jim had announced, and very secretly delighting in the gentle concern the Human showed for his Vulcan. This was the one remaining bone of contention between them, and only very rarely spoken of. As a rule, Jim accepted the difference in the Vulcan's attitude, having long since understood that Spock's refusal to publicly acknowledge their relationship was not meant as a slight to him, not rooted in personal shame about their kind of love, nor in any fear to confess the fact that Spock, too, did in fact possess emotions and acted upon them.  
  
Spock filled ground coffee into the simple device and rummaged drawers for the battered single chopstick Jim used to stir the concoction, when he was interrupted by his comm-link going again. He hurried over to his console and took the call. It was Saavik.  
  
"I got stuck working out those antimatter equations; I need to ask you some questions", she simply announced.  
  
Spock knew Jim would be irrationally hurt to find him engrossed in a conversation about science upon coming home, so he cut his pupil and surrogate daughter short.  
  
"I am busy at present; please call me again after" -he calculated quickly how long it would take for Jim to arrive home, and for them to cover the disputed ground- "two point three hours so we can set an appointment for tomorrow, if you can wait till then, Saavikam".  
  
"Of course I can wait. I can memorise command rules in the meanwhile instead of tomorrow, or go see a museum".  
  
"Do that", Spock said, terminating the connection just before the servo chef began it typical beep which would have betrayed to Saavik the nature of his present occupation to be a domestic one. Going back to the kitchen to stop the beeping, fill the device with boiling water and continue his search for the single chopstick, Spock experienced a slight regret of having to keep Saavik so far at bay. To be compelled to almost lie to her concerning all his day-to-day banalities did not sit right with his own standard of integrity. As far as he could make her out, she assumed that he occupied some impersonal quarters within the Starfleet Academy's faculty residence, and he had never disabused her of that notion. This behaviour was not completely honest, but it was necessary.  
  
He found the chopstick and stirred the brew with it. Having waited for an appropriate time, he then depressed the piston very slowly and carefully and returned the finished coffee to the servo chef to keep it warm. He took a mug from a cupboard and carried it over to the living room table, then returned to the kitchen to prepare some herbal tea for himself. He mixed the dried herbs from several tins to his present requirements, then filled them into the servo chef to prepare his tea in a less old-fashioned way than Jim's coffee. While waiting, he checked the logistics board for supplies and appointments. He needed to ask Jim about his plans for tomorrow in order to set an appropriate time for his appointment with Saavik. Jim never used the logistics board himself; as the device was Vulcan, he considered it to be too complicated. Spock sometimes teased him about his reticence, insisting that logistic boards were designed to be simple, as their main objective was to take care of the banalities of life in every and any Vulcan household.  
  
He wondered shortly whether to put out milk and sugar for Jim's coffee, then opted for artificial sweetener, as Jim was somewhat peculiar about his figure. Spock did not mind if Jim was a bit stout around the midriff, but Jim minded enormously, as the extra pounds constantly reminded him of his mostly desk-bound existence that forced him to lead a less active life than he had in former years. Spock sometimes felt tempted to remind Jim how he used to end up in sickbay with more or less serious injuries at least once every month, and to tease him whether this kind of a constantly bruised way of life was so much preferable, but refrained from doing so as he could feel through the bond how much that hurt Jim. For the same reason, Spock decided against chocolate chip cookies and got a plate of oatcakes from the food synthesiser.  
  
No amount of procrastination, however, could disguise the fact that it was now well and truly five minutes over the time Spock had calculated Jim would arrive home. He carried the oatcakes into the living room, weighing the relative probabilities of a would-be important personage keeping Jim at the HQ and a congestion of customers in the Vulcan shop, when the entrance door to the apartment whooshed and in walked Jim. "Hello, Spock", he said, carrying a bag over to the kitchen while Spock, having put the oatcakes down, went after him to retrieve tea and coffee from the servo chef. "Oh", Jim said upon perceiving the antiquated coffee maker, his joy at the care his bondmate took of him communicating clearly through their link. "Put that down a second".  
  
He enfolded Spock in his arms and just held him for a moment, then lifted his head to kiss the Vulcan lightly on the lips. Spock had long since learned to accept and share the human need for casual tenderness, and put his arms around Jim, gratefully kissing him back. Through the bond, Spock communicated his gladness at having Jim back in his physical presence, and Jim answered, conveying his joy at being with his lover, and his concern about the pain Spock experienced about the subject of his current studies.  
  
As they let go of each other, Jim put the bag into the stasis container as it was, silently daring Spock to chide him for expending energy to preserve a receptacle that would keep perfectly well on its own, while Spock carried tea and coffee over into the living room. Jim followed him, coming to stand at the table to fill his mug, drop in two tablets of artificial sweetener, and pick up the plate of oatcakes. "Come on, bring your tea. I'd rather lie down on the bed for our talk".  
  
Complying, Spock followed his bondmate into the bedroom, putting the tea down on his side of the night stand, then settling into their accustomed comfortable position for talking or reviewing data together, half-sitting, half-reclining against the headrest of the rococo bed, Spock's left arm loosely around Jim's shoulder. Spock reached out to switch off the reader screen still showing the portrait of two very emaciated men, eyes burning, purple blotches covering the skin of one of them, sitting on a sofa in a position similar to their own present one. There it was again, that identification. "Let it be, we'll probably need it later", Jim stopped him, adding that's just what I mean through the bond. Spock pushed back the screen a little and turned to his bondmate.  
  
"Well, then begin with what you have to say". Illogical to procrastinate any longer.  
  
"I don't know where to begin. This isn't exactly a line of thought, more like a tangled web".  
  
"Begin at the topic that brought all this about", Spock helped, conveying acceptance through their link. "You felt, through the bond, the pain I could not control when I reviewed those historical facts". He indicated the reader screen with a gesture of his head. "I perceive this as a failing of my Mastery of the Unavoidable. I believe you are familiar with the concept".  
  
You would talk like that, Jim chided through the link. Aloud he said, "Yes, you mean the control of emotions, mostly pity and pain, you might feel when something happens or comes to your notice that you can't help or influence".  
  
"Correct. In this instance, I felt pain at events especially unavoidable, as they lie almost three hundred years in the past. The cure against the disease then called AIDS was discovered two hundred and sixty-two years, the vaccine two hundred and seventy-four years ago. There was no reason to feel - pity - for people that would have died long ago in any event".  
  
"But that wasn't it".  
  
"Yes". Spock was at loss for words for a moment. "Yes. It wasn't only pity. I did not feel like that about the other diseases I studied. It was some sort of emotional identification. Those men that died of that disease - that were let die by misinformation and silence - were like us, Jim. I could understand how they felt watching each other die, I could see the two of us in their place, helplessly seeing each other wasting away. I could share their grief at that, and their anger at the knowledge that so much could have been done to prevent it, but wasn't done, because they were just - gays". Words failed him again. Sensing Jim's encouragement through the bond, seeing the concern in the hazel eyes fixed into his, he continued. "As we are".  
  
"As we are", Jim echoed. "That's the point. You see, I'm human and you're Vulcan, and we are high brass in Starfleet, and known throughout the Federation, and blah and hoo. All this emphasises our uniqueness and makes it easy for us to forget there are - and were - others like us. Less known, less visible, more ordinary. We're not two of a kind, we're part of a community that has its roots in exactly that part of history you were studying, and especially in the very city where we are living now. We can live in peace, we could tell all the world about us if we'd want to without fearing recriminations because of the enormous and admirable fight those people put up in the face of death. They are our kind, our history, our ancestors in spirit, and you were forced to face that fact when you studied the history of that disease". He suddenly grinned, mischievously and very tenderly at once. "Welcome to the real world, Spock".  
  
Spock let his head drop against Jim's, pressed his face against his bondmate's neck. The emotional show-down had come with unexpected suddenness. "It is completely irrational, but it seems so - unfair that we are at liberty to lead our way of life because they were not, because they died. On Vulcan, we remember the victims of the endless bloody wars before Surak's reformation by adding our blood to theirs, as we know that their deaths finally gave us our peaceful lives. Being what we are..." Say it, Jim prompted through the link. "Being gay men, we owe the same debt to those that died of this illness, AIDS".  
  
"Yes. You've come a long way today to perceive this, my dear Spock". Jim slipped his right arm around Spock's hip and hugged him hard.  
  
Spock felt compelled to qualify this statement. "I have always known, but I did not accept it - emotionally. And I am still not at liberty to act upon that knowledge. You know the Vulcan way. Claiming the right to bond with a person of one's own sex would mean basing decisions upon emotion, and would thus ultimately lead to being pronounced vre'kasht, banished as a heretic against the Way of the Vulcan, declared non-existent, by the whole planet. Controlling homosexual tendencies is part and parcel of controlling all emotion, and mostly only a small part of it. I always perceived this as a minor issue, just one small piece of what I needed to control, even following the events at Beta Antinoi 55, until you came to me after the V'ger incident, and I found I did not wish to control that part any longer".  
  
Jim hugged him again, turning to Spock, using both arms, then lifted his head for a kiss.  
  
"Do really want to tell me there are no others, no gay Vulcans? I mean, I always understood you're hiding from your family, for your family's sake, even, but do you think you're really the only one?"  
  
"No. There may be a few hundred, female couples mostly, living in deep hiding, their relationship never mentioned. You know those Vulcan silences. You know how Vulcans go on not mentioning things until they up and die".  
  
"And the men?"  
  
"There's pon farr. If a male Vulcan finds himself utterly unable to bond with his allotted female, he just dies. And even if one finds a bondmate of his own sex, there's only silence for them, or going offplanet and forfeiting their home and their families. There is no acceptance for them, no ritual, no recognition. Just silence until death".  
  
"As you know, it was similar here until the victims of AIDS began equating silence and death, and passionately protesting against both".  
  
"So what? Do you want me to take on an entire planet of stubborn traditionalists and fight for my right to say aloud, 'I belong with Jim Kirk, I am bonded to him and I love him'? Jim, that could take up the rest of my life entirely, and would very likely fall completely flat. I'm not that important. They'd simply declare me vre'kasht and be done with me".  
  
Jim smiled. "I always love to hear you declare aloud how you feel about me, but no, I do not need to hear it pronounced to all of Vulcan. We found our place together, and can be content with. As to Vulcan, this custom simply can't survive. It's diametrically opposed to Federation law, the IDIC principle, and several other important points of consideration. Somebody will stand up to fight for his life and his right to live it in the open and keep his home at the same time eventually; and somebody will finally stand up to fight and win. We'll probably live to see it".  
  
Spock steeled himself for the confrontation that must follow. "So what is it you ask of me, apart that I accept the history of this city we live in as part of our own history, and honour the memory of those dead from that illness as the memory of people who died for us also?"  
  
"That you have already accepted; that's where we began. And Spock, don't go all defensive on me; I can feel that through the bond. Just listen".  
  
"I can feel you preparing a list, and I will listen". Spock was pleased to sense no resentment from Jim at this stark announcement; he was used to the way of his Vulcan by now, at least.  
  
"Well, Spock, I can understand that you do not tell your father about us, that you even don't tell your mother as she's bonded with him. I can accept, although it still hurts me, that you will not marry me by law, although we have long been married by the bond, because that would mean a public announcement. But do you have to lead the life of a desperately paranoid closet case? Do you really need all that business about strictly separate comm-links, about your personal console I am absolutely forbidden to touch, and all that? Do you really need to pretend to all our neighbours you just come here occasionally to visit me, ringing at the door when somebody's passing, and calling me Admiral? You don't even answer the door, ever."  
  
"Do you realise that the only persons who know about us are that Vulcan healer you saw about your foot on Centaurus, of whom you said she didn't matter as she was sworn to professional silence, my nephew Peter, Dr. McCoy, Uhura and Christine Chapel; and when I told Christine you sulked at me for a week, and not out of consideration for her former crush on you? I know that if I'd accidentally betray us to somebody as utterly trustworthy and harmless as Scotty, or Sulu, or Chekov, you'd throw me the Vulcan equivalent of tantrum. Now, what's all of that for?"  
  
I don't want to berate you, Jim added through the bond. I honestly want to discuss this with you. I care. Spock took it in that spirit.  
  
"About the comm-link, the console and the door, that's obvious. Having a common comm-code would be tantamount to admitting to all and sundry we live together. Can you imaging us being listed under the same comm-code in the Starfleet database and nobody noticing, apart from us answering each other's calls all the time? Do you really want to answer my calls from Vulcan, from the academy, thus proclaiming me yours? We could just as well marry. Nobody knows where I live, so people who come here come to see you. Why should I expose myself to them? And McCoy always knocks and shouts, 'Hey you-all, open, it's me", so I recognise him, and Uhura always calls first and suggests some signal like ringing three times. And Dr. Chapel is the one weak point among all those who know about us, as her, as you say, 'former crush' for me makes her the most likely candidate to tell some extraneous friend about us, and then knowledge spreads. As for the neighbours, we're not exactly just anybody, and additionally lots of Starfleet big brass live in this house, and if they notice they'll start to talk eventually, and finally some Vulcan will hear, and then all's up".  
  
Jim dropped his head on Spock's chest and snuggled close, sending a tendril of gentleness through the bond, as if he needed reassurance of his bondmate's love before continuing their argument. Spock was touched, and let him feel that.  
  
Jim lifted his head, staying close, and let loose his next attack. "But then I can't understand how you can be so perfectly candid and unselfconscious with those who know. I mean, you tell McCoy things, quite matter-of-factly, that make my eyes goggle. And when you're in a good mood, you can camp it along with Uhura like any swish little piece from our less-than-glorious history, taking the humour, slanging back. The first time I saw you two at it I thought for a moment I'd come to the wrong movie, or probably to the wrong universe". Spock couldn't suppress a smile, but Jim continued, on a more serious note, "When you're so paranoid about anyone finding out, how come you live with me at all? After all, people who come to see me find you here more often than not. Although you immediately start 'Admiral'-ling me, and going about some business on the computer, people do notice. And they also notice traces of your presence all over the place, your ancient Vulcan weapons on the wall, your fire demon and meditation paraphernalia in here, and your scientific disarray sitting in the corners. And don't you dare get up now and put everything into one cupboard".  
  
Jim ending on that lighter note, Spock smiled again before answering, tackling the less serious issues first. "People in general may think what they please as long as they don't get proof, as a shared comm-link would be. As for McCoy and Uhura, they needed to know for practical reasons. McCoy is doctor to both of us, and Uhura was the one person who could divert my comm-link into our shared system without anyone taking notice. It would be illogical to pretend to them, as they already know. Apart from that, they're both very good friends of ours. We both trust McCoy to the end of the world, despite the acrid comments he'd make on the way there, plus it would be illogical to keep knowledge from him that he needs in order to assess our physical state. And I know for a fact that you delight in Uhura's banter as much as I do. She started not taking me so dreadfully serious even during the first months of our original five-year-mission aboard Enterprise, mocking me in songs and making loose comments about me, while almost everyone else stood frozen in awe of me. Although I made a show of protesting, I found it refreshing to be taken not entirely serious by at least one person on the ship, and we continued on that note ever since. Why should I not 'camp it along with her' as you choose to call it, when it absolutely delights everyone present?" Spock fell silent, preparing both of them for the serious part of his answer. Clear and decisive, like the blade of a lirpa coming down after prodding the opponent with the blunt end for a while, he stated, "As for the rest, I need to live with you as we are bonded, and I want to live with you as I love you. Our present arrangements constitute the utmost compromise I make to accommodate the rest of my life with my need and my love for you".  
  
Neither said anything for a while, savouring the deep, strong feeling of mutual love and devotion seeping through the link of their bond. Jim moved over to sit between Spock's legs, leaning his head against his Vulcan's chest. Both felt like crying, or like crawling into each other, or both. Finally, with a very small voice, Jim added his last, most painful items from his list. "All those other things only get on my nerves more or less persistently, but some things simply hurt me. Some very small things, like the way all my old friends and acquaintances as a matter of course talk about their wives and kids, and I can never mention who I am going home to. Like having to brush off tactfully the occasional woman who considers me fair game, instead of proclaiming once and for all 'I'm married to Spock'. Like having to lie to my mother about what I was doing and how I am doing whenever she calls, not being able to tell her what's foremost on my mind. Like the way you creep over to my room in the dead of the night, creeping away again in the small hours, when and if you see it fit to accompany me to my mother's farm in Iowa. Spock, she's my mother: I want her to know I am happy even if you need to keep that knowledge from yours. And I think she knows anyway. I guess that's talking big things already". He stopped, preparing to voice his greatest hurt. Spock sensed the pain through the bond and projected tenderness, encouragement, love, to enable him to go on. "The biggest of them all is your Saavik. She's the one single most important person in your life apart from me, and yet you keep us completely separate. You pulled her from that hellish planet, you raised her from a savage little animal to an intelligent and impressive young woman, and yet you tried to hide her very existence from me even during the first years of our bond. I couldn't help wondering what in the universe you did during those long leaves of absence you suddenly started taking, and I was relieved no end when you finally told me about her. She's your daughter in all but physical fact, and I so wish her to be part of my life as well. Last and most important it is intensely painful to me to share your pain at having to lie to her, at having to keep her at bay, when you love her so deeply. And it must be painful for her also, although as the good little Vulcan you've raised her to be she'd never show it. She must know there's a very large portion of your life you keep from her, she must wonder what she's done so you don't trust her. I'd never accuse you of feeling shame at our relationship, but sometimes I suspect you feel shame at preaching the Way of the Vulcan to her and hiding the fact you don't live strictly according to it; shame at preaching, not at your way of life, that is. This is unnecessary and must end".  
  
Spock gathered his bondmate even closer, brought his head to rest on Jim's and almost whispered into his small and gently rounded ear, "This pains me also, and shall be remedied sooner or later. She will ask me one day, and I shall answer truthfully. Meanwhile, give me time. I can't throw off all my defences at once, and I shall always remain the Vulcan I have been raised to be in most of my dealings with people. Most of the unnerving things and some of the hurtful ones you will have to bear, though, just as I have to. Do you think it doesn't get on my nerves that I have to jump out of bed in the middle of the night to get a damn comm call? It must be borne. Mastery of the Unavoidable. You will have to bear some things, and as we go along I will truthfully re-examine on what issues I can relent, in which points that Mastery demands calm acceptance of facts instead of paranoid secrecy. But in any event, do tell your mother. Call her tonight and tell her. I've come to know her as a very trustworthy and strong woman. I do not intend to cause you all that needless pain. As for all other things, wait for me to come out slowly, step by step, not all at once. Will that serve for you?"  
  
Jim just cuddled closer, not answering. Presently he murmured, "Yes, more than fine. You are a very generous person, and I will not trespass on that generosity. I do want to stay realistic, I don't want you to give up too much just to appease my emotions. You taught me at least partially to master the Unavoidably, too. I shall give you all the time you need".  
  
Spock felt impelled to make some first step out of his Vulcan "closet". He gathered his Human up and kissed him. "For a beginning, will you accompany me when I discard my Mastery for once and continue my journey through the painful history of our kind? Would you view the material with me, talk with me about it, share the pain I experience? Would you honour with me our ancestors in spirit by remembering their history?"  
  
"Of course I will; I was going to suggest the very same thing. Perhaps it's not so much a matter of absorbing all the facts, more of taking one paradigm and letting it sink in". Jim knelt up between Spock's legs, kissing him back. "But first, I fear, I need to wax prosaic. I have to eat something else than oatcakes before we go on". He stood up. Spock calculated quickly (they had talked for one point two hours; there was enough time for the meal before Saavik called about the appointment, so they could return to the bed and their personal and historical explorations after), then followed Jim to the kitchen. "Yes, I think I should have that plomeek soup".  
  
Jim got the bag from the stasis compartment. "Another first step I ask you for", the human said, almost flippantly. "Don't give me that cold Vulcan stare when I tell you I was a bit late this afternoon because I called Christine Chapel for her recipe for plomeek soup before I left my office. As you need to have plomeek soup, I thought we can just as well put all the ingredients into the that thinggy fresh instead of just the plomeeks, having the rest synthesised".  
  
Spock smiled into Jim's eyes. "Yes, I'd probably have thought you should avoid going on about it, as that would make her crack only sooner rather than later, but that's probably paranoid. She's probably glad I'm happy with you making plomeek soup for me".  
  
"Very probably", Jim answered, kissing him.  
  
  
  
Their meal was uneventful, Spock silently spooning down his plomeek soup while Jim watched him from over his salad. His Human had long since learned that talking for talk's sake was unnecessary, even offensive, to the Vulcan. Spock mused on the infinite care the Human took with him, all the small, unobtrusive things Jim did to make him feel accepted, appreciated, loved. Like giving in time and again to his Vulcan peculiarities, like making plomeek soup for him, like almost never eating meat in his presence, like telling him all he needed to know in order to keep his logistics board up to things. Logistics. Yes. Spock went to the kitchen to get himself another bowl of soup, bringing three more slices of toast for Jim, and the board.  
  
"We need to talk logistics for a moment", he ventured into the silence, "before we continue the evening as intended. Jim, do you have any appointments tomorrow, and if yes, when?"  
  
Jim grinned. "For chrissakes, Spock, tomorrow's Sunday".  
  
"The universe won't wait for a holiday customary to the planet Earth".  
  
"No, but I don't work tomorrow. You're off planet with your shipload of cadets far too often for my liking anyway, so when we're both here I'm not so keen on working Sundays. I could go to a reception at the Andorian consulate if I wanted, in fact you could come, but there is no" - he grinned again - "logical reason to go. Nobody there I need to see, or something".  
  
"Go anyway. Saavik requested my aid with some problem concerning matter-antimatter physics, and I need to set an appointment with her for tomorrow".  
  
"Well, the reception's at half past seven, you can enter that into your thinggy; but I really don't know that I want to go. I can stay at home and read something relaxing while you work with her, can't I?"  
  
"Of course". Spock entered the date into his device nevertheless. "I only intended to make sure our schedules will not clash unnecessarily. As we both occasionally need to leave earth for assignments, it would be illogical to make appointments for different times when we have the chance to be together. As we can help it, that is".  
  
Jim put his fork down and gazed tenderly at his bondmate. "Logic has nothing to do with that, Spock. It's a question of love".  
  
"Assuming as given that we made our commitment to one another, it is only logical that we adjust our logistics to spend as much time with each other as we can".  
  
"Well, if that's what you call it", Jim smiled, leaving the sentence unfinished. He stood to carry his empty plate into the kitchen. "Do you want any more plomeek soup, or can I take your stuff as well?"  
  
"Yes, thank you; the quantity I consumed was more than adequate".  
  
Upon returning from the kitchen with a glass of beer for himself and one of fruit juice for Spock, Jim signalled to his bondmate to follow him once more to the bedroom. After putting the glasses down he stretched, groaning, while Spock settled himself into his customary position on the rococo bed.   
  
"Where do you want to start reviewing the material, Jim?", he asked, while deciding he would do something to relax his lover's aching back.  
  
"I don't think we should review any of your material. I said one paradigm, didn't I? Well, I'm thinking of one fictional paradigm from the time of the plague itself".  
  
"Which would be?", Spock asked, less than convinced.  
  
"A movie called 'Philadelphia'. And, while we have the film piped in from the data bases, could you sit on my back for some time? It aches a lot from sitting at desks and conference tables all day, every day".  
  
Spock pulled the reader screen close and entered some specifications. "We should probably practice our Tai Chi and our Asumi on a more regular basis to alleviate that problem, as for example every day instead of every third or fourth".  
  
"In what time, Spock? If I have the choice of fighting you in public or kissing you in private, I take the second possibility every day".  
  
"The one does not preclude the other", Spock rejoined. "As we usually meet for practice during breaks in our duties anyway, I could easily program the logistics board to find appointments during our daily schedules".  
  
"If that means getting to see you more often, I'm all for it". Jim flopped down onto the bed, turning over and indicating the small of his back by tapping it several times with his fist. "Come and sit on me, that's a good - Vulcan".  
  
Spock obliged, straddling his bondmate and lowering most of his weight onto the offending part. "Ouch. That's so good. Just sit there, don't do anything".  
  
"Aye, Sir", Spock quipped, distributing the rest of his weight between his thighs. Vulcan muscles being much more compact than human ones, Spock knew his weight to be considerably exceeding what his skinny frame suggested; so he had learned to accommodate that fact in his intimate dealings with Jim Kirk. He carefully pulled the reader screen over. The movie finished piping in, but he could feel that Jim would need to be sat on for some more minutes before his ache had eased sufficiently.  
  
"Tell me about that movie. Why that particular paradigm?"  
  
"Instead of recounting facts and figures, things you're used to dealing with, it shows you only one case", Jim murmured into the cushions. "It was the first movie about AIDS produced by the mainstream media for a general public at that time, and it got a lot of praise. And it will encourage you to identify rather than assimilate information. And I think that's exactly what..."  
  
Spock's comm-link went. Jim groaned, expecting the comfortable weight to leave him, and radiated considerable astonishment when Spock took the call on his bondmate's terminal beside the bed, voice only, staying put.  
  
"Spock here".  
  
"This is Saavik. I had another try at the equations, but I can't see how anyone ever arrived at them, although they're perfectly logical in application. So I call back as agreed about an appointment for tomorrow".  
  
"If that is so, Saavikam, I shall meet you in your customary study cubicle at the academy library at 1930 hours, if you're free at that time".  
  
"It suits me fine. I shall prepare my material and my questions accordingly".  
  
"Very well; and additionally you could give me an impression of the exact field you are experiencing difficulties with, so I might be able to prepare better on my own side".  
  
"It is about the equations used to calculate the increase of the energy return variable in relation to the size of the dilithium crystals used".  
  
To his horror, Spock heard a very low gurgling noise escaping from the cushions Jim was pressing his face into, accompanied by a violent shaking of the body below him. Apparently, his bondmate was experiencing a laughing fit. Impossible that Saavik, with her increased pointy-eared hearing, did not perceive the sound.  
  
"I shall be prepared to answer your questions adequately. However, please excuse me now, as I seem to..." - he didn't want to lie to her - "... be experiencing some problem of a domestic nature that needs attending to". That, at least, wasn't a lie. "I shall see you tomorrow". The gurgling and heaving increased in frequency.  
  
"At 1930 hours, Mr. Spock", Saavik repeated, signing off just in time to spare him from having to explain away some major inconsistencies to her, as Jim Kirk now exploded into a fully roaring laugh.  
  
Spock laid his hands onto Jim's shoulder blades to calm him. "What is so amusing to you? I would have assumed there was nothing out of the ordinary in my conversation with Saavik".  
  
In fits and starts, Jim splurted: "You talking to her like that while sitting on me! I mean, can you picture the way her eyes would have goggled, Vulcan or no, if she could have seen us?"  
  
"That is precisely why I chose voice only", Spock replied, still steadying his lover, hands on his back.  
  
"But can't you see how funny that is? The absurdity of calmly talking to her about the damn dilithium variable from that position! And that routine about a problem of a domestic nature, that was priceless!"  
  
"Actually, that was all I could do to keep from directly lying to her".  
  
Jim got a grip on himself rather suddenly. "I can appreciate that, and I know it took you a lot to not compulsively rush to your console. She got something to wonder about in any case". He broke out laughing again. "She must think your bathroom plumbing's gone wrong!" This time, Spock joined in the laughter.  
  
After finally calming down, Jim groaned and stretched under his bondmate. "I think that's fine, thank you. Has the movie finished piping in yet?"  
  
"It has". Spock got off, settling himself into his usual place and holding out his left arm for Jim to cuddle into. "I'm still not convinced why a set of fictional characters should engage my lack of Mastery - or my sympathy, as you may call it - so much more than the actual victims, but I shall trust you with that". He pulled the screen around to enable both of them to see. "You usually know me rather well". He punched a button for the representation to start.  
  
While preliminary announcement coursed over the screen, Spock found himself in a rather peculiar situation. Mastery of the Unavoidable was second nature to him; as a matter of course he engaged that mental mode when dealing with whatever tragedy he might encounter. More than once McCoy had tried to provoke him about that, calling that behaviour callousness or worse. Now, having decided to deliberately disengage or override his Mastery, he found he could not do so consciously. Jim, sensing his uneasiness, made himself heavier in Spock's arm. Relax. Just let it sink in; don't do anything on purpose. Give in to it. It'll come.  
  
The movie began, titles running to a muted song over observations from the everyday life of a late twentieth-century American city, Philadelphia, which had given the movie its name; it continued to introduce the main character, called Andy, a young, successful gay lawyer suffering from the disease. Still Spock wasn't convinced. It was only when this Andy's considerate, gentle, brown-eyed lover started fussing over him in a hospital, disputing a doctor rather vehemently over the application of a antiquated and cruel medical procedure that would have had given McCoy a fit, that the movie finally got at him. Suddenly he could see himself in that lover's position, caring for a mate that was certainly going to die, fighting to make his remaining life as easy as possible, and he felt the urge to get closer to Jim. Giving in as he'd promised, he gathered his bondmate up in both his arms. A reassuring hand laid itself onto a square, bony wrist.  
  
Subsequently, when another character was explored more thoroughly, a straight, black male lawyer this Andy succeeded in engaging for a lawsuit against his firm which had fired him on a pretext, Spock pulled back again, as that person was clearly intended as a focal point for identification to the less-than-enlightened general public of the time. But then there was a scene when the main character visited his relatives together with that lover, who was accepted lovingly, matter-of-factly, and asked his family's permission to go public with his lawsuit, and that made him get rid of his Mastery for good. His mind substituted that family first with Jims mother and nephew, then with his own parents and relatives, and he suddenly felt an aching, never before experienced sensation of loss, of being lost, at the emotional realisation that he could never trust his own family even now as that twentieth-century ancestor in spirit, even if he was fictitious, could trust his. Jim felt that aching loss through the bond, bringing up his second hand to gently rest on Spock's neck.  
  
Then, several scenes later, there was a party, the main character dancing with his lover, and the other lawyer dancing with his wife in the same way; and that was the point Spock could sense the first actual tears welling up. When the black lawyer came home and took his tiny daughter from her cot to reassure himself of the continued security of his own small world as opposed to that other relationship, just as serious and valuable as his own, but facing inevitable extinction, the Vulcan buried his face in his bondmate's bronze hair and heaved the first, most painful sobs. The hand on his neck answered by stroking him lovingly, reassuringly.  
  
Then, at the end, when the lawsuit was temporarily won and everyone took their leave from the dying Andy in a hospital room, when, alone with him at last, that pale, emaciated creature pulled off his oxygen mask to look into his lover's - his no-less-than-bondmate's - tender brown eyes and quietly say, "I am ready", they were both lost to crying outright, emotions amplifying, building themselves up in a growing spiral, through the bond. In a short tussle, Jim made them rearrange their position for Spock's head to rest on his chest, and they went on crying, clinging to each other, through the scene after the funeral, with all those children present, children representing a future which must be better than the now, and all through the end titles. Jim switched off the screen, turning his head to kiss his bondmate's damp eyes, and they remained together, curled up, sharing their feelings through the bond, calming down slowly, for a long time in the gathering darkness.  
  
Pulling himself out of that sea of pain the successful disregard of his Mastery of the Unavoidable had thrown him into, Spock lifted his head to kiss his bondmate, tenderly onto dry lips at first, then more passionately, exploring deeper. He loosened Jim's shirt, slipping his right hand under it to rest on a warm side. He was answered by a hand crawling under his sweater, travelling up and down his bony spine.  
  
It stopped. I just as badly need to have you, but a few more words first.  
  
"I wonder", Jim said aloud, "have you ever seen the Gay San Francisco Museum on Castro?"  
  
This was familiar ground. "Jim, I've seen every museum in this city while still on the academy".  
  
"You would have. And I think every cadet goes to see that one, as it is so unique. Still, did you ever come back there after we bonded?"  
  
"I saw no reason to repeat the experience".  
  
"Of course not. You know, I went there again when you took out the Enterprise for the first time without me. Even when I'd been as at cadet, the hall were the Quilt panels are made me cry, as a side effect impressing the girl who'd come with me with my sensitivity; but now I knew that what the museum depicts was part of my own history. I saw it all with new eyes. I think you should also go again one of these days".  
  
"So I should". A decision formed itself inside Spock, a large 'first step' to take, a risk to take in order to claim as his even more fully what had been his already for so long. The emotional exertion at the decision communicated itself clearly through the bond, wide open as they were, and Jim radiated back a growing apprehension.  
  
"I believe you wish us to go together. We shall do so tomorrow in the morning". Incredulous joy at this plain, stark announcement spilled over into his mind from Jim, who palmed on the light, only softly, before beginning to seriously tug on Spock's sweater. "You are astonishing, my love, you are generous, you're incredible, you're special, you're mine", Jim murmured into his bondmate's kisses. Growing eager, frantic, he added, "I want you. Now!", before all individual concern was lost in union of mind and body. They rejoiced in the unfairness of Life and Time, allowing them to be together so completely, so unchallenged, grateful and slightly ashamed towards all those countless, faceless men who'd died, thus building with their very lives the foundation of what was possible for Spock and Jim today.  
  
Hours later, they finally collapsed in a tangle of limp arms and legs, like puppets cut from their strings. Spock, still inside Jim, beating a slow, leisurely retreat, felt his almost-asleep lover collecting himself to coherent thought once more. Some painful thought, making him shake at the sense of absurdity. Say it anyway, Jim.  
  
"You know, they couldn't even do what we did just now. That was dangerous to them".  
  
"I know".  
  
"But you have to take that in. Imagine, you would have had to pull over some rather sturdy rubber device before coming on in. They had to keep their minds on such things when making love; their lives were never completely free from that illness. Not like us; not like the freedom we have".  
  
Spock pictured that, not liking it in the least. Slipping finally free, he reached over to turn out the light, pulling the covers over them and settling down to sleep, Jim's head on his chest, as they were used to. Relaxing, the last remaining tendrils of concern still in one another's mind, they drifted off.  
  
  
  
_Sunday_  
  
Standing in the middle of the hall which constituted the centrepiece of the museum, Spock experienced a chill despite the heavy, dark Vulcan robes he wore. Trying to adjust his sense of temperature, he found himself unable to do so, as the cold came from within him.  
  
The museum sprawled through several old buildings on Castro Street, left and right from this house, which had been the beginning. After the plague had finally been over, someone had donated this former porno theatre as a permanent home for the many thousand hand crafted quilt panels, each commemorating one person who'd died of the illness. The museum people had torn out everything from the disused cinema, leaving just the four walls and the roof, supported by iron rafters and pillars. On the brilliant white walls were mounted the quilt panels, preserved in acrylic glass. They were rotated every month, and yet it took years to get through all of them. On a ledge, about one meter above the floor, there were candles and flowers even now; even now, after more than two hundred and fifty years, some of the names were remembered.  
  
"Who was Klaus Nomi?"  
  
"I don't know", Jim answered. "We can look him up in the computer they have in a room in the next building. There's a database there with all the names, the quilt panels, personal stories, photos, if there are any. They wanted no explanations in here, just the memorial".  
  
"How do you honour the dead, if not with candles and flowers? We didn't bring any".  
  
"By expressing our emotions", Jim answered, turning to face his bondmate. He looked up with a small, lopsided smile. Spock regarded him seriously. He wasn't in uniform today; today, he was just some middle-aged civilian in a rather loudly patterned shirt, come with his lover to visit the holy places of their kind.  
  
"And how do you suggest, how are we expected, to express our emotion".  
  
Jim smiled again. "We are not expected to do anything. You know, there's a room about the history of this museum in the next building. When they first opened this place in the twenty-first century, there was just this hall. The entrance was at that dark door which is closed now, and beside that they had a table with a large book of empty pages into which visitors would sign their names and write comments of what they felt seeing the memorial. They have a computer in the other building now for that, where we can express our emotions and pay homage".  
  
The familiar paranoia welled up in Spock. If he wrote his name into the electronic visitors' book with an appropriate comment, people from the academy, from the Vulcan embassy, would eventually come, add their comments, browse, and discover...  
  
Jim had caught that through the bond, and was now grinning outright. "I don't expect you to expose yourself. Just be honest. And don't think now about what you're going to write then. Just let this place sink in".  
  
With that, he turned away to look up once more to the woven, knitted, patterned monuments on the walls. Spock followed suit.  
  
He knew that some panels had been made from the victims' clothing, from their bedding; that most of them had been made by their lovers, their mothers, sisters, closest friends. These panels had been exhibited at fund-raising charities, carried in demonstrations, spread on the ground to cover whole parks to make people see, notice. They had been paraded, all of them, in a silent candle-lit march through the streets of this city on the night when the announcement had come through that the disease was finally overcome, when hundreds of thousands of people had gathered to grieve, and to triumph, at once.  
  
Quiet, mournful music was seeping through the hall from unseen speakers. Spock knew the piece; it was an adagio by the Italian baroque composer Albinoni. He thought of the desert wind which was the only sound at the blood stone of T'LingShahr, the place where Surak had died and many thousands before him, of the stark, neglected ruins of the ancient city around it, and compared it with the well-kept deliberateness of this place, the environment created to appeal to the visitors' emotion. And yet he did not find it in him to despise the human way of remembrance. This was appropriate to their nature, as was the gigantic Buddha/Jesus statue of Nagasaki, as was the quiet vastness of Auschwitz. And all of them carried the same message as the stone of T'LingShahr: Never forget! They died so we can live. Their memory will preserve us from the deadly errors of their time.  
  
Deliberately, he let his controls falter and slip. As once at T'LingShahr, he could feel the past as a part of his own being, the painful history of his kind the foundation stone of his own life; at the blood stone, he had honoured his history as a Vulcan, here he acknowledged this human history as a man who loved another man.  
  
He turned his head to look for Jim, who was gazing intently at a panel of whirling shapes in black and red, a name in huge white letters running over them, just somebody's first name and an exclamation mark, as if the maker called after this lost person, or angrily announced the name to all the world. Somebody who had been loved, and then missed bitterly.  
  
Jim turned and came over to him. Spock's acute hearing assured him that they were still alone in the memorial hall, and that nobody was approaching from either side. He held out two fingers of his right hand to his bondmate, and Jim answered the gesture by touching them with two fingers of his left hand, the only public show of affection allowed to Vulcans. They looked deeply into each other's eyes, one of those long looks they'd given each other even long before they'd ever been lovers, one of those looks full of concern, of appreciation, of caring. They let one another feel their love and tenderness through the bond, and their sorrow for those people in the past who had not been as privileged as they, who'd died of what they were. Yes, this is the right way for you to honour their memory, Jim told him through their link.  
  
Then, suddenly, Jim's gaze left Spock's eyes to stare at something behind his shoulder, where some movement must have caught his attention; and a new, sharp sensation of shock and exhilaration came over through the bond. Spock turned to look left, and there was Saavik, standing in the door to the preceding building, anger and accusation at the betrayal, and a formidable amusement, breaking through her thin covering of civilisation and Vulcan-ness.  
  
She had come through the rooms of the museum with her Vulcan quietness, with her Hellguard stealth; and so Spock had never heard her approach, until she happened upon them, upon their private moment in the middle of a public place. She had not meant to spy on them, to intrude on their privacy; it were they who'd caused this confrontation. Spock felt his paranoia returning with a vengeance: he'd been right! But no, no other person on this planet could have come upon them unnoticed like this and made sense of what she saw; a highly unlikely trick of probability had thrown the three of them into this situation.  
  
Repressing the illogical urge to pull back his fingers from Jim's now that all was up anyway, Spock addressed Saavik, who did not stir from the spot where Jim had first seen her. "Saavikam, I never meant to lie to you, to keep the truth about myself from you. I intended to tell you - someday. But it was necessary to keep this aspect of my relationship with my captain hidden from all outsiders, and I saw no immediate reason why you should know now. Yet I would have answered any question you might have asked".  
  
Saavik gave no answer, just took a few steps toward them, looking from one to the other. "Ensign Saavik, I can tell you I don't like this secrecy either, not one bit", Jim Kirk now interfered. "But I could accept it, as I know just as you must that Vulcan does not tolerate this kind of relationship".  
  
"I know nothing about those things!", she stormed, turning to Spock. "Spock, you told me I could find a world of my own making, I could be just what I am, that I never need be ashamed of who I am, that I didn't make myself, that I was as I should be when I was myself; and so why don't you listen to your own advice?"  
  
"I long ago accepted myself as what I am, Saavikam", he answered with infinite gentleness. "Otherwise I would not stand here today with my bondmate, a Human and a male. But I did not make the world, either; and the secrecy I employed even toward you is nothing but the utmost compromise between my bond and the rest of my life; to keep that, I had to keep my relationship hidden from all the world. It is nothing personal, Saavik".  
  
She stared at him.  
  
"I quite understand that you disapprove", he continued on another note. "However, I do not ask your approval, only..."  
  
"You don't understand anything!", she fairly shouted. "I don't disapprove, I thought I said so. I've always known that your captain was the single most important person in your life, the one who staid where the rest of the world only passed through. And I'm not so astonished at discovering the true nature of your relationship; it makes perfect sense when viewed with the other evidence; I should have noticed on my own. Only, I can't understand that you rate me as part of 'all the world'; I always thought I was special after you saved me and you taught me, and after what we went through when we went back to Hellguard. I don't care if Vulcan doesn't tolerate this or that, I'm not Vulcan!"  
  
Spock was at loss of words for a moment; this acceptance from his almost-daughter warmed him more than he cared to admit to himself. He could never make her un-know, though, and tell her again on his own accord; nothing he could say would ever wipe away that first impression of catching him at it, of finding on her own what he had meant to hide forever.  
  
Thankfully, Jim chimed in once more. "Ensign Saavik, please don't be so harsh. I've been giving him hell about just that last night, that's why we're here now. We couldn't know you'd come to just this museum just now; in fact I thought you'd be probably sweating over those infernal dilithium equations. Never understood them myself, just pretended I did and got away with it".  
  
"What do you know about my problems with these equations, which I mean to solve, not to get away with. Humans have this thing they call 'woolly thinking', they do it all the time, it's so illogical".  
  
Jim chuckled. "Quite a fierce Vulcan you are, Ensign. However, I was there when you called Spock about that appointment. I think you must have noticed my presence".  
  
"So it was you laughing, not the bathroom plumbing gone wrong. What was so amusing about the dilithium equations?"  
  
"Nothing; only, we'd just had that discussion and..."  
  
Steps were approaching the door from the building they hadn't yet seen, several people, humans. Spock took his fingers away from Jim's and stepped back a little. "This is not the right place to discuss these things", he said. "We can talk further tonight after we deduced and solved the equations".  
  
Jim intervened again. "This is the perfect place, seeing we've come here to acknowledge what we are. And you don't need to keep her at bay any more now, Spock. Ensign, I know all of this must be very strange and new to you, but why don't you come with us after we all finished with this museum? We can have some lunch and talk, and then you can work on your equations while I sit in the other room so I don't have to hear that stuff?"  
  
"I really don't want to see any more museum after this", she scowled. "It is strange and new to me, Admiral, but I better get used to it. I can wait for you at the exit".  
  
"Saavikam, you need to reign in your impatience", Spock scolded. "This is a very interesting museum of human history, and it is illogical to forgo its appreciation for purely emotional reasons. We shall continue through it as planned, and so should you; we will meet you at the exit".  
  
The group of humans was entering the hall just now. Spock threaded through them, sensing Jim following him, Saavik staying alone with her bewilderment.  
  
Jim obviously didn't feel like 'any more museum', either; they silently and rather quickly made their way through the final building dedicated to the history of gay men from after the plague ended to the present, with a room about the history of the museum itself. Spock looked up some of the names from the quilt panels in the hall there, but Jim's mind wasn't in it. So they just went through the next rooms and only stopped shortly at the room dealing with homosexuality on other worlds (no mention whatsoever was made about Vulcan, Spock noted), and finally reached the exit and the electronic visitors' book.  
  
They were browsing through it, considering what they'd write themselves, when Saavik came upon them once more. Her visit had been no less perfunctory than theirs, obviously. "What is this?" she asked. "Are you ready to go?"  
  
Amazingly, it was again Jim who answered. "Electronic visitors' book. Just give us a moment to write something". He turned toward her to let Spock think. "Everyone adds a few words of their own in remembrance of those who died. Human custom".  
  
"Vulcan custom also, as I hear", Saavik answered.  
  
Their exchange went on quietly in the background while Spock searched his mind for a suitable quote from Surak, something that would be an appropriate comment to make for a rather prominent Vulcan who'd visited this museum to study a human history that didn't concern him. But then he wondered about himself, how quickly and matter-of-factly he'd accepted the way Jim talked to Saavik, how natural it felt to leave them to speak to each other while he dealt with other things; and in the end he just wrote what he had felt in the hall before Saavik came, what he had felt in T'LingShahr: Never forget! They died so we can live. Their memory will preserve us from the deadly errors of their time, and signed it just with his name, without his rank. Jim turned to see what he'd written, and to Spocks astonishment just wrote his 'James T. Kirk' under Spock's signature. "Do you mind? The words are perfect; I wouldn't know what else I should write".  
  
"It is quite acceptable", Spock answered, suppressing his paranoia. Yes, paranoia's an emotion, too. Try controlling that for a change, Jim mocked tenderly through the bond.  
  
"May I see, or is it private?", Saavik asked from behind them.  
  
"This is a public visitor's book, Saavikam; it would be illogical to write something private in it".  
  
She looked. "It appears to be somewhat private, though".  
  
"Personal, not private, Ensign. There's a difference for humans".  
  
"Not for Vulcans, but also for me. May I write something personal, but not private as well?"  
  
"This is, as I said, a public visitors' book, Saavikam; everybody may write something".  
  
They gave her room to use the console. I learned many new and unexpected things in this place, and found an answer to an urgent question I never even knew I wanted to ask, she wrote.  
  
"So, is this in an appropriate way personal, but not private?" she turned to Spock.  
  
"Quite suitable", he assured her. "Let us go".  
  
So he left this momentous place, Jim to his right, Saavik to his left; and outside, in the fresh air, he suddenly found he was happy.  
  
  
  
_Monday_  
  
At 22:43 hours, Saavik called to announce to Spock she'd finally solved and understood the last equation. As Spock's line was busy with a long distance call from Vulcan, Sarek talking about some arcane family affair, she tried Jim Kirk's number next, matter-of-factly asked him to pass the message to Spock, adding a polite phrase, and signed off. Jim felt as if he'd won a major battle, exhilarated and relieved. He went over into the living room and, grinning happily, stood just out of range from the camera sensors of Spock's console to listen to his bondmate speaking Vulcan.  



End file.
